I loved these commercials and every so often a new one will pop up. What's weird is in Japan a celebrity appearing in a commercial is not a bad or uncommon thing. Scarlet Johanson was the spokesperson for Lux cosmetics, George Clooney was for Nescafe, Brad Pitt hocked Levis I believe at some point. A large majority of Japanese commercials feature Japanese celebrities. From A list actors and actresses to pop stars to comedians, famous people appear in commercials all the time. I would hazard to say they appear in a majority of them. It is not seen as odd here as it is in the west. It's like Super Bowl spots year round. You're not selling out by doing the commercial. In fact a lot of companies insist on getting big names for the ads because it creates a level of trust and belief in the product. "Hey if this famous person is willing to talk about it, it must be good" type attitude.

Sorry all, fell asleep a little early last night.
I was a bit torn as what to pick this time around. It was between something classic and traditional and something a bit more off the beaten path. Looking at my previous choices I decided that maybe it was my time to do something less traditional musical and just something that spoke to me.
We like musicals. We like the music of Sondheim and Lloyd Webber. These are classics of musical theater. In recent years a new trend of musicals started, and that was the juke box musical. Take a band or singer you like and write a story around some of their songs and bingo, you have a musical. What if there was a singer that decided to make his own musical though. He'd write the film and all the music but kept it very himself. Well in the mid 80's The Talking Head's David Byrne decided that he wanted to make a movie. He wanted to make a comedy. However he was David Byrne so it'd include lots of music numbers in it as well. I present my pick for Musical Monday...
True Stories
Best I can tell this is not streaming anywhere but is a pretty cheap rental from Amazon, iTunes, etc.

I think the biggest problem with this movie is simply not understanding what the Silk Road was. The history of the silk road is hundreds of year long and this movie take place about 200 years into it. A quick and dirty summary of the whole thing is China was kinda closed off until the Han Dynasty. They sent out people to deal with nomads, they started encountering other nations who had horses that were better than Chinese horses, the Han Dynasty opened trading up with the west in an exchange of good, culture and knowledge. In fact the "silk road" was not a singular road but rather a series of routes of trade from Turkey all the way to Korea. It was loved by everyone. It brought silk to the west and horses to the east along with a bunch of other goods and religion. It ended hundred of years later because the Ottoman empire in Turkey closed their boarders and maritime trade took over.
In Dragon Blade Adrien Brody's character reveals he didn't want the child emperor but rather to seek control of the silk road. This makes no sense. It is thousands of miles long. If he gain control of one point of it he'd upset China and the Roman empire. He could collect a tax from traders going through his "city" but that's about it. There was no way to control it and if he did it'd be a small section for a short time. If he took over the route and caused problems it would just end the route like it had in the past. It was a no win scenario for him.

There is a line (again maybe cut from the American edit) when they encounter the two armies at the start and identifying them and what language they speak. I think it is a given that the Silk Road Protection Force is versed in various languages.
What I find strange is that it seems that Jackie Chan is the only character than can speak Latin. Or that he knows enough to have some broken communication with them. However, his second in command that betrays them, Yin Po, met Adrien Brody's character and made a very complicated plan with him to set up the Silk Road Protection Force and take over the area. So Yin Po knew Latin as well? He seemed to be speaking much better "Latin" than Jackie Chan as well.

I know this won't mean much to anybody because most everybody probably watched the American edit, but they talk about the couple that bookends the film in the international cut. Yes while they use satellites and computers to reconstruct how the city looked there is a plaque that they uncover that basically gives a brief history of the city. This combined with the fact that it is mentioned they found out about the place from a book and legend would imply how they knew the story and the computer wasn't telling them the story. Their reason for lying about it is still a mystery. However the craziest part is how in just under 2000 years the city that seemed to be on level ground in the desert went to being in the snow covered mountains. That's the craziest part about the bookends.

I will back up everything you are saying here.
I can only go by what I know from my friends and people I've met but most people do not know accents. I should say people who study English or particularly like a certain country will notice a difference but the average person will think it's all English. There might be "He sounds different than him" but not the the point of thinking about country of origin. Also, unless again they know English they will be reading the subtitles at the bottom of the screen and not so much care about how they sound. It's more about the look of the person and also a hollywood name. Which I find odd because I don't image John Cusack is a huge draw in China. I think it is more about "we have a hollywood star" than anything else.

No I clocked that from near the start (anytime a protagonist is unnamed brace yourself for a big reveal later) and I want to even say there is a reference to it early on. I can't remember what exactly, I think maybe referring to choir group as we. The one thing I liked that I didn't fully notice right away was the boy was wearing a red shirt the entire time and Stew is wearing a red shirt as well.

I had the misfortune of watching this on YouTube so not the greatest quality picture, it was split oddly (seriously cut at the intermission) and had Spanish subtitles but I loved it. I thought it was a high energy production with some catchy music and some fantastic performances. I think the thing I liked the most was the actual staging with minimalist sets of basically just chairs and the set up with the musicians in the stage and them being able to perform around that. At the start I was very worried they'd fall into one of the musician holes. That said this seems very much like a show that is good on video but great in person. Live music and all that. It succeeded in making me really miss live theater as well.

There are so many great Italian foods.... this is really hard. There is no denying the greatness of pizza and pasta. However if I think Italian I think back to this restaurant I use to love going to and the dish I would get without fail were these stuffed gnocchi. I could eat them for days and never get tired.
I second this and for Ms Taylor Anne and all the other Gambit and Rouge shippers, she's currently writing Mr & Mrs X which is the ongoing adventures of the two.

For a second I saw the word classic and The Wicker Man and got excited about us watching the original. That is not the case....
Starting Monday I am working for two weeks straight with no weekend! Yea! So 8th please.

I just want to second the fact that Bill Macy is a true renaissance man. Not only is he a great actor, but he can write and direct as well. Also a very little known fact he is an amazing keyboard player as well. In fact in the early 80s before his acting really took off he was the keyboardist for the band Dog Police. Don't believe me just watch the music video for their titular song.
Is that William H Macy? No. Does it look like him? Kinda. Was this an excuse to get more people to watch this weird music video? Yes!

This is always a weird time of year for me living in Japan because we often don't get a lot of these movies until well after the Oscars. However this year I've seen about half of them and can see most of the others remaining. That said my overall all take on the nominations from what I have seen is.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess this will motivate me to go out and see A Star is Born this weekend and watch Roma on Netflix.

True. I skipped the beginning so I missed that. Thank you!
Okay so from the Santa Monica Police department to the high school is at a minimum 25 minutes without traffic. Which makes this near impossible even if he was speeding. However, this also under the assumption that he went to the Santa Monica Police. For all we know she could have told him that she's from Brentwood and he went to the West LA police department. This would put him about 12 minutes away from the high school with speeding that's totally doable. It also makes more sense this way because with all due respect to the Santa Monica police I do not see them taking over a drug ring. This could also explain how he beats the bad guys to the school even with their head start.

**** Large Graphic Warning**** (sorry)
Paul asked and so I shall grant. Again warning up front I haven't been to LA since I was 13 and just going off assumptions and the limited information the movie gave. If there is a better way or if I missed something, sorry.
So before I show the map I thought I would explain the choices made in mapping it. We first see Chris Evans at the Santa Monica Pier so we start there. When he gets a call from Kim Basinger he's driving past Cresent Park near Santa Monica Pier, so that's the next location. To the best of my recollection the police are never mentioned by precinct or name, so I assumed he went to the closest one and that is the Santa Monica Police Department. Now here is where things get tricky. Next he's going to the school to get Ricky Martin. Kim Basinger originally tells him to head to Barrington and Sunset. Next we see he's turning onto Sunset and she tells him it just a mile or so down the road (which Marymount High school is) so I assume heading to Barrington and Sunset like he was told he would have gone up to Barrinton and then onto Sunset. Now this is where it gets trickier with the chase from the school. There is no indication how for or where they went so it was impossible to plot. Next Chris Evans goes to the cell store which we learn from the news later was in Westwood. From there he car jacks the lawyer which again we learn from the news later that it took place in Century City. From there he goes to LAX and from there is told to go to the bank at Olympic and Century Park. Then he needs the lawyers phone so he goes to the towing place at 2252 South Barrington (thanks printed address on truck) and takes the car back to the pier. So his route would look like this:
As you can see this creates a trip of 42.8 miles and without traffic a total of 2 hours and 2 minutes driving time.
However, movies are full of lies and we all know this. In fact I talked to my good friend and LA native Jason Statham and he let me in on some inside information. See the first part of my journey was correct. However the Ricky Martin chase was actually shot outside of LAX on West Jefferson. Any eagle eyed Statham can see that. Next, that car jacking was not in Century City. The tunnel he refuses to go into is the famous 2nd street tunnel which is miles away. Next that bank they go to, clearly the Union Bank tower is visible when entering it, meaning again it is miles away from Century City. So I decided to plot on what if he travel where we actually saw him in the movie and his journey looks a little more like this:
This bumps up the distance traveled to 97.2 miles and total trafficless time of 2 hours and 58 minutes.
So what does this all mean?
Well despite seeing phone screens a lot we are never shown times and unlike Escape from LA there is no ticking clock to go by. Here is what we know, Kim Basinger is taken shortly after she send her son off to school and before the chase the kids are being let out so that scene is roughly 3pm. Later at the climax of the film we see a low hanging sun by the pier meaning this is shortly before sunset. Giving the film the benefit of the doubt and saying it's late May or June based on school being in and the shirtlessness of Chris Evans, we can assume the ending of the film takes place no later than just past 8pm. That means from the Ricky Martin chase until the end he would have roughly five hours and change to get all this done in. Does this fit into the times on the map? I guess that largely depends on traffic that day.